A COVID-19 Dilemma: Where are all the PPEs?

Where are the PPEs? Hidden in some locked drawer until the "big wave" hits.

To clarify , the CDC has never lowered their recommendations to anything other than respiratory level respiratory protection; N95 or higher which includes PAPR and other HEPA level filtration is still the recommended level of respiratory protection.

Lesson learned: We should become less reliant on disposable PPE and come up with reusable options. Perhaps each nurse could aquire our own reusable mask -much like we do our stethoscope- but from a list of "approved" models.

I know of a hospital which is using reusable N99 masks on the COVID floors.

In between patients, the nurse wipes the exposed part of the mask down with purple top wipes. At the end of the shift, the nurse washes the mask with soap and water in preparation for use by the next shift. They attend an inservice and fitting.

The mask in use looks something like this:

As for GOWNS: One hospital where I worked used washable isolation gowns which were washed in house in the laundry room, We can return to that and hire extra laundry personnel in an emergency.

I work at an FQHC, and I feel like clinics like ours are part of the answer to “where has the PPE gone?” Before Covid, we basically never used masks or gowns. Certainly not N95s. We were fit-tested, and about twice a year we’d have a patient suspected for TB, and one or two people would dig out an N95. Since this started, we are going through boxes and boxes. Gowns— I never wore a gown for the entire year that I worked here, but now we have several people gowned all day every day. A triage nurse and an MA stand in the lobby, gowned, and our Urgent Care staff are gowned all day. We have, finally, started using reusable washable gowns, but for the first several weeks we used disposable ones.
PPE is being used at an astounding rate, for legitimate reasons. I know it’s tempting to chalk the shortages up to “hoarding” or evil administrators hiding them. But if every clinic, doctors office, and dental office is now using gowns and masks as part of their daily work, when they didn’t before, that is a huge increase in usage.

We should be able to buy our own reusable respirator masks so that nothing like this happens again in the future. It's obvious we cannot rely on the government nor our own employers to give us the appropriate PPE.

On 4/5/2020 at 9:00 AM, OUxPhys said:

We should be able to buy our own reusable respirator masks so that nothing like this happens again in the future. It's obvious we cannot rely on the government nor our own employers to give us the appropriate PPE.

This is a great idea and I’d like to get one after this is over. Just like my stethoscope; I can buy it with my own money and keep it somewhere for use when needed.